2008 Fleet 10 Summer Cruise

The 2008 Summer Cruise started on Saturday, June 16^th at the Sailing Emporium in Rock Hall, with the Opening Picnic. 

 

This year there were nine boats on the cruise.   Two new members of the Fleet, Matt and Karen, launched their boat, Bellefonte Lady, at Rocky Point State Park, (near Middle River). 

 

 

Tony and Kim came from Melbourne, FL,  and chartered a Nonsuch 26, named Superior Olive. 

        

 

Dan and Grace came on Wanderer III, from their home port on the Delaware River, north of Philadelphia. 

    

Augie, Lori, and Augie IV were joined by their young friend Louie on their Catalina 30, August Moon,  and sailed from their home in Severna Park.

   

Tom and Loretta sailed Energy from the Patuxent River

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Richard sailed Shaba across the Bay to Sailing Emporium from Whitehall Bay. 

        

Tom, Gina, and Todd came from Cambridge, on Woodwind.

 

Danny and Peter motored First Draught, and Alice, our nephew Austin, and I motored Key Largo from Middle River.   Matt and Karen were caught in storms near Rocky Point and missed the opening picnic. 

 

Kim and Tony passed out this year’s t-shirts, and everyone really liked Tony’s design:

On Sunday, we sailed to Langford Creek.  The winds were very light on the Bay, but once we rounded Cedar Point the wind increased and we could begin to sail more seriously.  

 

 

We were joined by Matt and Karen at our raft, where they were introduced to the other members of the Fleet sailing on the cruise.

    

  

Danny and Peter sailed on, closer to Chestertown, since they didn’t have a copy of the cruise itinerary.  Loretta prepared dinner for us on Energy.  On Monday, we sailed to Chestertown.  It was a run most of the way with good winds.

     

It rained that afternoon, and it was convenient to just have dinner at the restaurant at the marina, the Fish Whistle, which was very nice. The restaurant was very clean and bright, and dinner was very pleasant with plenty of sailing stories told.  

      

The rain stopped during our dinner and the moon came out over the Chester River:

 

On Tuesday, we stayed at Chestertown as planned.  Staying over a day was something new that we thought we would try this year, to give us more of a chance to explore the town, and relax a little more during our cruise.   The river was a little high in the early morning from the previous day’s rain:

       

It just happened that on Tuesday, Chestertown was “Maryland’s Capital for the Day”.  Maryland’s Governor, Martin O’Malley, visited and the Mayor and Governor gave speeches, after the Town Crier  introduced them. 

   

  

(These two photos were used with the permission of  the Governor’s photographer).  The skipjack, Elsworth, was used as a backdrop for the speeches.

      

http://www.gov.state.md.us/pressreleases/080617.asp

The part of the Governor’s speech that was most memorable to me was when he said that we have to get children interested in spending time outdoors, (and away from their computers, video games, and DVDs).  I have recently read articles about this same issue and thought that it was interesting that he was thinking about the same thing.  We had several youngsters on this year’s cruise, so I felt that we were doing our part.  Another interesting fact that was given was in colonial times, the population of Kent County, (where Chestertown is located), was 16,500.  Today, the population is 20,000. So it was concluded that Kent County has had steady population growth over the past 300 years!

Later that afternoon, a 110 foot motor yacht, Victorious, tied up on our pier of the marina. 

 

   

The boys had a tour of the engine room, and were given autographed hats by the yacht’s owner, Vic Edelbrock, whose company makes carburetors, manifolds, and crate engines for classic and custom cars. 

  

 

Tony and Kim also visited with Vic Edelbrock.

    

That evening, we had another nice dinner in Chestertown at the Blue Heron Café.

    

  

The Sultana, a 97 foot (sparred length), 51 foot (deck length), topsail schooner also returned to Chestertown’s docks on Tuesday evening. 

 

     

http://www.sultanaprojects.org/abouthevessel.htm  

Dan and Grace, who left for home on Tuesday morning, made it as far as Rock Hall, due to high winds  and waves. (On Wednesday they made it to Worton Creek, again due to high winds and waves.  On Thursday, they made it to Summit North Marina on the C&D Canal, on a bay that was like glass.  And on Friday, they made it back to their marina, helped by a rising tide on the Delaware Bay and River.)

   

 

On Wednesday we had an exciting sail down the Chester River, beating into the wind with reefed mains and working jibs.

     

We sailed to an anchorage on the Corsica River, where the boats were rafted together. 

    

 

Loretta made a wonderful dinner of barbeque, chicken shish kebabs, and a salad.  Danny, Peter, Todd, and Austin took First Draught for an evening sail further up the Corsica River.   Thunder storms came through and a rainbow appeared after the storms.  First Draught returned after the rain stopped, with its entire crew laughing.

    

On Thursday we sailed to Love Point, where the wind died and we had to start our motors to cross the Bay to Red House Cove, north of Gibson Island. 

 

  

   

 It was a cool day.  A few members of our Fleet went for a swim:

     

We then had another great dinner prepared by Loretta on Energy.

   

    

On Friday, we had a nice sail from Gibson Island to Port Annapolis Marina.  It was another comfortably cool morning, when we sailed out of the Magothy River into the Bay.  There were some strange wind shifts north of the Bay Bridge, but we did manage to beat into the wind and sail under the bridge, and later reach across the mouth of the Severn River. 

 

 

     

We had a quick swim in the marina’s pool, and then had a nice closing picnic on the marina’s deck overlooking the boats.

 

    

The picnic of ribs and chicken was brought to us by Beverly and John.

         

Alice was presented a vase by Loretta for her work planning and organizing the cruise.  I would also like to thank Alice for all of the work she did planning the cruise, and her work with the marinas and caterer.  I would like to thank Loretta for cooking her great dinners for us on Energy, and Beverly and John for bringing the picnic to Port Annapolis Marina for us.  I would also like to thank Tony and Kim for their work on the T-shirts, and thank Kim, Peter, and Tom A. for sharing their photos to help me with this write-up.  

On Saturday, everyone left the marina early and motored through light winds, after a night of thunderstorms.

The weather during the cruise was nice.  It never got unbearably hot, and we all know that it certainly can during a summer cruise!  There were several days when it was comfortable to sail in a sweatshirt.  That’s certainly good for June.   We did have rain and thunderstorms, but they always occurred at night, and didn’t affect our sailing at all.  We had several days of very good winds for sailing, some running and some beating into the wind.   The best part was, of course, being with our Fleet 10 friends!   

Aldo

Here are a few additional cruise photos: